Jamey is a lifelong Rangers fan who has been blogging for nearly 20 years at newbergreport.com and traces his fandom back to the days of Bump Wills, Bert Blyleven, and the powder blues.
While there’s nobody without a Braves cap who considers the Rangers’ July 2007 trade of Mark Teixeira anything other than an epic success, there’s apparently a small faction (a couple members of which have my email address) that’s convinced it was the last good trade Jon Daniels made. It’s a decidedly terrible take (usually followed by some sort of dogmatic correlation to Nolan Ryan’s departure, ignoring the pesky fact that Ryan’s exit took place six years later and also ignoring #berkman and #oswalt), no more rational than a local Athletic contributor obsessing over uniform color choice.
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But it got me to thinking: How happy would the lawn police be if Daniels actually made no trades since July 31, 2007 (a day on which he not only moved Teixeira in a seven-player deal that netted prospects Elvis Andrus, Neftali Feliz, and Matt Harrison but also picked up David Murphy and two others for Eric Gagne)? What if, since that date, this were like the baseball draft or the NFL, where trades are almost non-existent, and Daniels made no more trades in the 11 years since (because Nolan told he couldn’t, even after joining the Astros)?
Let’s take a look.
2007
JD made no more trades during the 2007 season after moving Teixeira (and Ron Mahay) to Atlanta and Gagne to Boston, so the hypothetical is airtight so far.
2008
How does that four-game improvement play out when Texas doesn’t trade Edinson Volquez and Danny Ray Herrera for Josh Hamilton, who doesn’t hit .304/.371/.530 with 32 bombs and 130 RBI in his first full Major League season — at least not for Texas? Do the Rangers still finish second in the West, their best division showing since the ’90s? You know what? Maybe, considering Volquez went 17-6, 3.21 as a Reds rookie, and while you can’t necessarily house lift a pitcher’s NL numbers into Arlington, hey, it never bothered Nolan.
2009
An 87-win team got there despite an injury-plagued regression year for Hamilton (Volquez only threw 49 2/3 innings that season). There’s not really any needle movement by undoing trades of Wes Littleton or John Mayberry Jr., and of the three trades Daniels made involving catchers, the least-notable of the three — Manny Pina along with fellow minor leaguer Tim Smith to Kansas City for reclamation project Danny Gutierrez — turned out to have more long-term significance than moving Gerald Laird to Detroit or picking Pudge Rodriguez up from Houston.
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2010
Do the Rangers win the West without trades for Cliff Lee, Bengie Molina, Matt Treanor, and Jeff Francoeur, and without Hamilton in his MVP season, and with Kevin Millwood back in the rotation? Maybe. Do they get out of the ALDS against the Rays? Absolutely not. They would have Justin Smoak back (and he’d have left via free agency by now), and also Tanner Roark. But Roark wouldn’t have helped Texas in 2010.
This would still be a franchise without a single playoff series win in its history, at least through 2010.
2011
Adrian Beltre signed in January 2011. He was reportedly close to signing instead with the Angels, and there are some who suggest Oakland was legitimately in that mix as well. Would he have signed with Texas if the club had just reached its first post-season 11 years and gotten bounced in the first round? I’d like to believe he would have. I’m not so sure. He didn’t come to the Rangers only because they met his price; he came because he wanted to win and Texas was the reigning AL champion.
And if Beltre ended up signing with the Angels . . . and they therefore don’t trade Mike Napoli for Vernon Wells (because they had their right-handed middle-of-the-order bat, not because they’re similarly handcuffed in this hypothetical) . . . I can’t even finish the sentence.
Whether or not Beltre still makes himself a Ranger, this trade embargo means no Napoli in Texas, no Koji Uehara or Mike Adams or Mike Gonzalez to beef up the bullpen, still no Hamilton, still (probably) no World Series.
The Rangers do get to hold onto Chris Davis and Tommy Hunter (both of whom would surely be gone by now as free agents), as well as Pedro Strop and Robbie Erlin.
I’ll take the pennant and, yes, I’ll take #onestrikeaway and all the (currently) ineradicable, searing sports-pain.
2012
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Texas still signs Yu Darvish (recall that back then, posted NPB players could only negotiate with the team making the prevailing sealed bid). But would Daniels have called the 2012 roster the club’s best (as he has) if there were no Hamilton, no Napoli, no Adams, no Uehara, and possibly no Beltre going into the season? Maybe, since none of them would have been around beforehand, either. But the club doesn’t win 93 games and earn a spot in the Wild Card Game.
However, in this scenario, Kyle Hendricks remains a Myrtle Beach Pelican (back when that club suited up Rangers prospects, not Cubs kids as it does now), and today he fronts the Texas rotation. More on that in a bit. Christian Villanueva also stays with Texas, for the time being (but if he progressed slowly as he did with Chicago, he probably would have taken minor league free agency after 2016, which he did in actuality), and Ryan Dempster stays away (along with Geovany Soto).
2013
Now we’re getting closer to present day, and closer to the raw nerve endings. A tradeless year means no Robinson Chirinos, no Matt Garza, and no Alex Rios, but the Carl Edwards Jr. bullet train remains on Texas tracks, and Justin Grimm, Neil Ramirez, and Leury Garcia stick around. Michael Young stays as well, though he might very well have retired after the season, as he eventually did after spending the year with the Phillies and Dodgers.
This was Davis’s breakout season with Baltimore. If not traded in the first place would he have reclaimed first base from Mitch Moreland? Would he have settled in at third base in Beltre’s absence? Roark arrived in August with Washington, and was outstanding. Hunter (shifted to Baltimore’s bullpen) and Strop (after his mid-season trade from the Orioles to the Cubs) started establishing themselves. Otherwise, none of the other prospects Texas traded over the previous six seasons had made any meaningful impact yet.
The Rangers lost a Game 163 play-in at the end of the 2013 regular season. They did win eight of Garza’s 13 starts — but Roark racked up as many Quality Starts (4) in his five Nationals starts (plus nine relief appearances) as Garza did in his 13. And imagine if Davis and Moreland were both in the lineup, perhaps preempting the idea of Nonplussed Lance Berkman as a Texas Ranger. I still don’t love the club’s chances to have done better without Beltre (.880 OPS) around.
I do miss Edwards.
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2014
This was the first season in which an inability to trade would have hurt in the long term. Texas wouldn’t have been able to move Joakim Soria for young righthanders Corey Knebel and Jake Thompson, who would facilitate trades the following year for Cole Hamels, Jake Diekman, and Yovani Gallardo.
A brutal year (which ended with a lost opportunity to make Alex Bregman a Ranger) would have been made worse had the Rangers been handcuffed on the trade market.
Then again, Craig Gentry would theoretically still be here, which would have made Levi Weaver’s investigative reporting at least marginally more linear, and Ian Kinsler for Prince Fielder would be erased by our exercise in revisionist history.
I’ve missed Ian Kinsler.
2015
Even without Knebel, Texas doesn’t acquire Gallardo (because we can’t make trades, remember? stay with me). No Hamels, either, and no Diekman or Sam Dyson or rejuvenated versions of Hamilton and Napoli. But the Rangers get Jerad Eickhoff, Jorge Alfaro, Marcos Diplan, Nick Williams, Akeem Bostick, and Tomas Telis back (but not Thompson, whom they wouldn’t have gotten in the first place).
Volquez (13-7, 3.04 with Pittsburgh) was really good in 2015, too. But he’d been a free agent coming into the season, and maybe he’d have moved on regardless of the scenario.
2016
You may choose not to remember than Jonathan Lucroy was really good and Jeremy Jeffress wasn’t terrible when they arrived. Carlos Beltran did what Texas brought him in to do. But a disaster against Toronto defined what had otherwise been a tremendous season in which the Rangers earned home field through as much of the post-season as they could play . . . and ended up winning zero playoff games.
The more long-lasting misfortune: That center fielders Lewis Brinson and Leonys Martin and righthanders Luis Ortiz, Dillon Tate, Erik Swanson, and Nick Green (plus Chad Bell, Ryan Cordell, and Travis Demeritte) are all somewhere else.
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2016 was without question a year to go for it — and Lucroy and Beltran did their jobs — but the hindsight analysis (Texas spitting up the ALDS; Lucroy playing terrible, uninspired baseball in 2017; Tate starting to refind himself in the Yankees system; and the difficulty the Rangers have had in solving center field [not that Brinson or Martin don’t have their own issues]) makes the idea of Monday Morning GM’ing this thing and undoing the year’s trades an attractive one.
2017
A bad season, but the ramifications of having to pull back the club’s trades are mixed. On the one hand, if Darvish finished the year as a Ranger, Daniels surely would have tendered him a Qualifying Offer and recouped a draft pick following Round 2 in 2018. Frame of reference: TCU’s Luken Baker was the first of the four QO-comp selections made after Round 2. He’s pretty good.
On the other hand, I doubt Texas would choose Baker (or another player the club could have taken in that 75-80 range) over Willie Calhoun, A.J. Alexy, and Brendon Davis, and had the Rangers not been able to trade Class A infielder Yeyson Yrizarri (White Sox) and Brallan Perez (Orioles) for something in the range of $2 million in extra international slot money, they would not have been able to sign Cuban outfielder Julio Pablo Martinez (or Shohei Ohtani, their first choice to use that money on).
Texas wouldn’t have outfielder Pedro Gonzalez or lefthander Brady Feigl if trades weren’t allowed, either. Like 2014, the Rangers positioned themselves as long-term shoppers on the trade market in 2017, and they certainly strengthened the farm system there, in a couple different ways.
2018
Time will tell how this year’s trade activity pans out. If Daniels weren’t able to trade players, Texas would not have Taylor Hearn, Rollie Lacy, Jason Bahr, Wei-Chieh Huang, Emmanuel Clase, Ronald Herrera, Tyler Thomas, Kelvin Gonzalez, or the three players who were named last week to complete deals — outfielder Alexander Ovalles, third baseman Sherten Apostel, and lefthander Joshua Javier — nor would they have Cory Gearrin or Eddie Butler.
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Keone Kela and Jesse Chavez would still be here (though Hamels and Diekman would not be, since they’d have never arrived in the first place), as would minor league righties Sam Wolff and Israel Cruz, lefthander Reiver Sanmartin, and 4-A catcher Brett Nicholas — and Matt Moore would not be — but given the state of things, it’s probably a fairly easy call on which group you’d want.
So what would the Rangers look like today if, since July 31, 2007, they made no trades?
They would not have had Josh Hamilton, Cliff Lee, Cole Hamels, Mike Napoli, Sam Dyson, Jake Diekman, Mike Adams, Koji Uehara, Jonathan Lucroy, Yovani Gallardo, Carlos Beltran, Bengie Molina, Matt Garza, Matt Treanor, Robinson Chirinos, or Alex Rios, and maybe not Adrian Beltre.
They wouldn’t have Willie Calhoun, Julio Pablo Martinez, Taylor Hearn, Pedro Gonzalez, A.J. Alexy, Rollie Lacy, Jason Bahr, Ronald Herrera, Brady Feigl, Wei-Chieh Huang, Emmanuel Clase, Tyler Thomas, Sherten Apostel, Alexander Ovalles, Brendon Davis, Joshua Javier, or Kelvin Gonzalez.
They would have Ian Kinsler, Kyle Hendricks, Tanner Roark, Carl Edwards Jr., Keone Kela, Jerad Eickhoff, Jorge Alfaro, Lewis Brinson, Pedro Strop, Nick Williams, Leonys Martin, Manny Pina, Jesse Chavez, Robbie Erlin, Leury Garcia, Craig Gentry, Justin Grimm, Brett Nicholas, Tomas Telis, and an extra supplemental second-round pick this past June, plus Marcos Diplan, Luis Ortiz, Dillon Tate, Erik Swanson, Nick Green, Sam Wolff, Reiver Sanmartin, Akeem Bostick, and Israel Cruz, and they might have Edinson Volquez, Chris Davis, Justin Smoak, Tommy Hunter, and Christian Villanueva, if they didn’t move on once they became free agents.
An idea of what the 25-man roster might look like today without any trade activity over the last 11 years:
ROTATION: Kyle Hendricks, Mike Minor, Tanner Roark, Martin Perez, Austin Bibens-Dirkx (Jerad Eickhoff/Edinson Volquez: DL)
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BULLPEN: Carl Edwards Jr., Jose Leclerc, Keone Kela, Pedro Strop, Jesse Chavez, Robbie Erlin, Alex Claudio (Tony Barnette/Matt Bush: DL)
CATCHERS: Jorge Alfaro, Manny Pina
INFIELDERS: 1B Ronald Guzman, 2B Rougned Odor, SS Elvis Andrus, 3B Ian Kinsler, UTIL Jurickson Profar, UTIL Isiah Kiner-Falefa
OUTFIELDERS: Nomar Mazara, Joey Gallo, Shin-Soo Choo, Nick Williams, Leury Garcia (Delino DeShields/Lewis Brinson: DL)
The truth is the outlook for the next year or two would look better today, particularly on the pitching side, if the Rangers hadn’t made any trades over the last 11 years.
But they wouldn’t be burdened with those two pesky AL pennants.
EXIT VELO
- Apostel, who came over from Pittsburgh to complete the Kela trade, is a 6’4 third baseman with an advanced approach at the plate, raw power that’s already begun to actualize, and a strong arm from third base. The 19-year-old product of Curacao, who was hitting .259/.406/.460 for Rookie-level Bristol in the Pirates system, joins Short-Season A Spokane.
- Javier, also age 19, was 3-1, 2.80 in four starts and six relief appearances for the Diamondbacks’ Rookie-level entry in the Arizona League when he was identified as the player to be named later in the Diekman deal. In 35.1 AZL innings, the lanky 6’3″ lefty fanned 33 and issued 15 walks, allowing one home run among 27 hits. The Dominican native’s last appearance came against the Rangers’ AZL squad on August 12. He gave up one hit over four scoreless frames.
- Texas traded international bonus pool money (reported by the Associated Press to be $250,000) to Kansas City for right-handed reliever Kelvin Gonzalez. The 20-year-old Dominican had a 4.19 ERA in 11 relief appearances for Rookie-level Burlington this summer, yielding 20 hits and six unintentional walks in 19.1 innings while fanning 17. He’s been assigned to the AZL, where he debuted on Saturday with a hitless inning of work (two walks, two strikeouts looking).
- Making his first appearance in 23 months, Chi Chi Gonzalez fired two perfect AZL innings on Friday, striking out two.
